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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=brent.allsop@comcast.net
href="mailto:brent.allsop@comcast.net">brent.allsop@comcast.net</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">ExI chat list</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, January 28, 2009 5:35
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [ExI] consciousness and
perception</DIV>
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<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>John,</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>This is getting very tiring.<SPAN> </SPAN>If you are
so sure you are not just making lots of obvious stupid mistakes, talking about
things that don't matter, ignoring lots of what is being said, with all your
assertions and religious name calling, I wish you would just canonize what
your beliefs are, so everyone else can see your obvious silly
mistakes.<SPAN> </SPAN>So we can end all this very exhausting yes it is
no it isn’t.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>First off, it is still tentative, but there is a
significant and growing amount of ‘scientific consensuses’ for this particular
theory.<SPAN> </SPAN>There are some great minds already explicitly in
this camp.<SPAN> </SPAN>Namely Steve Lehar, John Smythies, Steve Harison
and others and more are joining (google for these people to find out how
impressive they are.) Also, this is not my theory. John Smythies,
the director of the Neural Cehmistry division of the Brain and Cognition
center at UCSD was publishing papers arguing for this before I was even born,
and he wasn't really the first either. Many of these ideas, in various
forms, go back to Descartes and before.<BR></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>It is our belief that no other theory of qualia (or lack
thereof) that will be able to match the scientific consensus that is now
rigorously forming around this particular theory.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Also, see this camp for why we believe so many people are
uneducated about this particular theory which we argue has a scientific
consensus supporting it:</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/91/2</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Next, this theory predicts that it is most definitely
scientific, demonstrable, objective and sharable.<SPAN> </SPAN>That is
what the scientific ‘effing’ the ineffable is all about, as described in the
camp statement:</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Obviously you don’t understand what is being said about
this at all.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>There is most definitely something that has a ‘red’
phenomenal property in a scientifically reproducible way, and it is not the
surface of a strawberry reflecting 700 nm light.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>This theory predicts that once you reproduce whatever it is
that has this phenomenal property, in another mind, the other mind will
absolutely, scientifically, always experience the same phenomenal
experience.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>If this is my taste of salt, the person experiencing it for
the first time will finally know what my taste of salt is phenomenally
like.<SPAN> </SPAN>If this persons uses something else to represent
sodium chloride, he will say something like: (that is different than my taste
of salt.)<SPAN> </SPAN>If his brain uses the same neural conscious
correlate to represent the taste of salt, he will say it is the
same.<SPAN> </SPAN>And you will be able to do all of this, reliably,
scientifically, and objectively, even if there is no salt anywhere in the room
where all this is being done.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>The theory predicts that we will come up with a type of
elemental table map of all the things in our brains that have phenomenal
properties – and what qualia each of those reliably has when in the right
state.<SPAN> </SPAN>In other words, it will be something like material
A, in state 1, always has a red phenomenal property.<SPAN>
</SPAN>Material B, in state 2, always has a green phenomenal property.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>If none of this is possible, after we fully understand the
brain, this theory will obviously be falsified. And if this predicted
effing scientific proof makes you eat your words, this theory will be
demonstrably, scientifically, proved to be THE ONE theory about the greatest
and most world changing scientific achievement of all
time.<BR></P><O:P></O:P><BR><BR>
<P class=MsoNormal>Brent Allsop</P>
<P class=MsoNormal><O:P><BR></O:P></P><BR>----- Original Message
-----<BR>From: "John K Clark" <jonkc@bellsouth.net><BR>To: "ExI chat
list" <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org><BR>Sent: Wednesday, January 28,
2009 11:35:47 AM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain<BR>Subject: Re: [ExI]
consciousness and perception<BR><BR>"Brent Allsop"
<brent.allsop@comcast.net><BR><BR>> This theory predicts that John
lock, and Descartes before him, had<BR>> everything they needed to
understand the difference between phenomenal<BR>> and behavioral
properties.<BR><BR>Locke thought movement and temperature belonged in
different conceptual<BR>categories and now we know he was dead wrong; Locke
didn't know the first<BR>thing about temperature except that if you touch
something very hot it<BR>hurts. Locke thought movement and rest were
attributes of an object itself<BR>and we know he was dead wrong about that
too. The idea that Locke's ideas<BR>about matter would be helpful to someone
wanting to make an AI is wacky.<BR><BR>> Tomorrow, someone could
revolutionize fundamental physics, explain quantum<BR>> theory in a very
different way than our current understanding or anything,<BR>> and that
would still not change the fundamental difference between the<BR>> fact
that all of that only deals with the way matter behaves in cause and<BR>>
effect ways .<BR><BR>Yes it only concerns cause and effect stuff, it only
deals with that silly<BR>new idea called the scientific method, it only deals
with things that<BR>actually DO something, things that cause something to
happen.<BR>It does NOT deal with thinly disguised religious mumbo
jumbo.<BR><BR>The trouble with conscious theories and all this "phenomenal
properties"<BR>crap is that they are too easy, any theory will do because
there are no<BR>facts it needs to explain. Contrast that with intelligence
theories which<BR>are devilishly hard to come up with because there are so
many things<BR>they must explain.<BR><BR>Given that you admit your ideas have
no observable consequences I find it<BR>difficult to believe you really were
surprised to find the scientific<BR>community was not interested in them. And
I don't see why you would even<BR>care. It wouldn't matter even if they were
fascinated because it can't be<BR>tested by the scientific method so there is
no way even lovers of your<BR>theory could advance it one inch in a thousand
years. It's as big a<BR>dead end as religion, and that's pretty damn
big.<BR><BR> John K
Clark<BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>extropy-chat
mailing
list<BR>extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<BR>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat<BR></DIV>
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